6mm Industry News updates

Probably you are all aware of what follows, or you don't do 6mm figures and so hadn't noticed, but a couple of things popped up this week.  

Firstly, Irregular Miniatures have announced that are taking an enforced break from supplying their 6mm ranges.  This is due to family illness, staff shortages and the need to create new moulds as the old ones are showing wear.  Hopefully this is a temporary measure and will be reversed before too long.  I know a lot of people don't like Irregular's style but they paint up far better than you would expect at first glance at the bare castings and most importantly they have stuff that others don't and at a very competitive price.  The good news is that they have said that for existing customers needing figures to complete projects they will do their best to supply the required figures if you email them.  I'm sure you all join me in wishing them all the best with these issues.

The second issue, and one for The Jolly Broom Man to be aware of, is that Baccus 6mm are stopping shipping their ranges to the EU.  This is due to the imminent implementation (try saying that without your teeth in!) of new product safety rules for goods imported into EU member states from non EU countries.  This is going to require significant paper work and EU representation and Peter Berry can't currently find a way to handle this cost effectively or with certainty that it will meet the new requirements.  He has posted to say that he will be looking to return to selling to EU if possible and that if you want any of his cracking figures selling to you in the EU you need to get orders in PDQ.  Peter is pretty scathing about the circumstances which have led up to this situation and to be frank I agree with him.  I have seen other suppliers taking the same position and I expect to see more.

Wargaming is a business of two extremes at one end you have Games Workshop who are now a FTSE 100 quoted company, and not the smallest one either.  While at the other end most wargame figure, rules and other paraphernalia production is at, or around, the cottage industry level.  The UK is a wargaming commerce power house but mostly fuelled from these small businesses.  Being a third country supplier to the EU hits those small businesses the hardest as they have the least spare resource in time and/or money to deal with this stuff.  I wish I had a solution to offer but I don't.